It’s not necessary that you agree, but you should listen to this. While coaching players on games that involves great strength, and, or explosive power Weight training soccer is very useful. If player do not need strength and power to a large extent even for them, strong abdominal and lower back muscles are helpful.
In this article you will find the basic concept of weight training for soccer using simple techniques for applying those concepts.
One of the key principles of soccer strength training is, Specificity. It means that if you can train your players in a way that emulates their activity when playing on the field, then you must spend the majority of your time training in that way. Like running is a good drill for runners and swimming for swimmers.
To improve power, speed is an important aspect in training. The role of players in team sports, their age, physical and mental capacity to take stress and their player’s level must be considered when coaching them in weight training programs.
All this information is useful for a trainer in designing a fitness training program, to make a good start.
Physical conditioning usually requires activities that improve specific training. For instance, to improve the aerobic and strength and power fitness, swimmers also run and perform weight lifting.
Injury prevention is another aspect of weight training soccer that is often overlooked. Injury prevention even though not directly contributing to the play, is important as it ensures that the players are fit to play at the most critical times of the year.
Running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, and getting ready for a shot are all the exercises performed in soccer. To develop strength, stability and power the chain of muscles titled as the “anterior and posterior chain,” involved in these activities should be given attention.
So for creating these muscles core lifts, like squats and deadlifts are important exercises. A comprehensive soccer fitness program giving due stress upon these two core lifts should work miracles for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.
To concentrate on the shoulders, arms and back muscle areas the program should also include swimming.
Usually strength enhancing programs include heavy weight lifting with few repetitions. Some sports require bulk and strength while some others have to ensure they combine adequate strength with mobility, speed and stamina like a mid-fielder in soccer.
Strengthening highly vulnerable muscle groups could also add to the performance benefits in the absence of primary strength, power or endurance gains. These include the lower back and hamstrings, and the quadriceps muscles that direct knee joint function.
So this is it. Always remember these points while weight training soccer since in sport like soccer weights may not give much advantage. You are invited to become a member of our youth soccer coaching society that has a plethora of informative articles, weekly newsletters, and videos to help you better understand the concepts of youth coaching.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Andre Botelho is a recognized authority in youth soccer coaching and has already helped thousands of youth coaches to dramatically improve their coaching skills. Learn how to explode your players’ skills and make training fun by downloading your free ebook at: Weight training soccer
